Boston Celtics shared a special bond with Waltham

Wednesday

Jun 20, 2018 at 1:02 AMJun 20, 2018 at 1:02 AM

BOSTON – While Waltham may no longer be home to the Celtics, the team is not planning to forget its practice residence of nearly 30 years.

With Tuesday’s grand opening of the new Red Auerbach Center at New Balance World Headquarters in Brighton, the team moved one more step away from the Boston Sports Club location it has occupied since 1999. Before that, the team spent nine years practice at Brandeis University on the floor that also bears the late Celtics coach, president and icon’s name.

But within the next few weeks the franchise will move its operations fulltime to the massive new facility overlooking the Massachustts Turnpike.

“Waltham was a great home for us or a lot of years,” Celtics president of business operations Rich Gotham said. “The partnership with the city of Waltham was great. We did a lot of work there in the community. Sad to go. But we’ll make sure we’ll keep the relationships warm that we’ve got there.

“We’re going to continue to do things in Waltham. It was a great home for us, and not a place where we proactively sought to leave.”

Gotham said the team was content in Waltham when first approached with the idea of being part of the development of the Brighton neighborhood – which now includes a new commuter rail stop, the Bruins Warrior Ice Arena and will eventually also include a world-class New Balance track facility. But the chance to more than double the space the team had for workouts, offices, medical care, and player amenities was an opportunity that the franchise had to embrace as it looks to its future.

“Every 10 to 15 years in this business you have to revisit your facilities,” Gotham said. “If you want to be considered a top-tier organization, part of that is your facilities. Whether it’s to go out and try to attract free agents, or retain your own players, there is a bit of an arms race that goes on with regard to facilities. The good news is that we’ve leapfrogged the competition for now.

“Being in Boston, closer to where we play, over the highway with 130,000 commuters every day coming by, just felt like a good opportunity for us. Ultimately, we needed more space. To be able to get 70,000 square feet in an area so close to the city is something we didn’t think was going to be viable or feasible. But here we are.”

Celtics coach Brad Stevens said he appreciated the time spent in his daily work home for his first five seasons in the NBA as well.

“We were thankful for our time that we’ve gotten a chance to spend in Waltham,” the coach said. “When you have guys who are willing to work, that’s the most important thing. But when you have a place like this, and you have guys who are willing to work, it just makes it ever more exciting.”

The Red Auerbach Center includes two full-length parquet courts. A 40-foot exercise pool, two hydrotherapy pools, and a float tank, a film theater, a nap room, a kitchen with a dietician on site, even a barber’s chair in the locker room, a game room with a pool table and a putting green.

Then there’s the two-story, floor-to-ceiling windows – with a giant stained-glass Celtics logo in the middle – in the workout room that overlooks the Mass. Pike and most of Boston.

“Our task is to create an environment conducive to growth,” Stevens said prior to Tuesday morning’s grand opening ceremony. “Obviously, people, and culture, and work ethic are a huge part of that environment. But these facilities inspire even more to be doing it. When you walk in here it’s: ‘Wow, you have everything.’”

Gotham said type of expansion was not possible in the Waltham location.

“Once you build a practice facility, it sort of is what it is in perpetuity,” he said. “You’re not going to be able to make too much structural change to it with that type of building and that type of architecture. Hopefully this will be a place we can grow into in a way than we could not in the current space we had in Waltham, even though it was a great space and served us for many years.”